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Cyberattack Concerns Real About U.s. Presidential Election, Stanford Scholar Says
Stanford University cybersecurity scholar Herbert Lin says foreign hackers constitute a viable threat against the U.S. presidential election.
Credit: Matej Moderc/Getty Images)
In an interview, Stanford University cybersecurity scholar Herbert Lin contends foreign hackers constitute a viable threat against the U.S. presidential election.
Lin cites two possible types of voting hacks, with the less likely method being the alteration of electronic vote counts so the outcome does not reflect the will of the voters. "That kind of attack is hard to pull off, and I'm not very worried about that--though I worry about it some," Lin says.
However, he says a more likely threat is the race's loser claiming election tampering by cyberattack, especially in the event of a close contest. "How would anyone ever prove that ballots, electronically cast with no permanent and auditable record, were accurately counted?" Lin asks.
In terms of how the U.S. should respond to clear evidence of a foreign country hacking its political process, Lin says it requires a balancing act in "calibrating a response that exacts a penalty but does not provoke a response that is unacceptable to us--and that's a hard thing to do."
He also says it is extremely likely a "baseline level of hacking" is happening all the time by all of the major powers.
From Stanford News
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